I looked at the clock on the wall as I waited by the door. I had received another text message from Easter, saying that I would be picked up at ten 'o clock this morning. It was already seven minutes past ten. As if I wasn't already nervous enough about getting more X-energy, now I was being forced to wait. Don't get me wrong; I was still looking forward to getting more power. But that simply made me excited, which in turn made me more nervous. My outfit was actually a lot cheerier than my last visit - this time, I had dressed in a short sky-blue and lavender skirt, with a similarly colored top. I kept my hair the same as ever; there really wasn't much I could do with it when it was this short. I also had on my necklace, the bracelet that concealed my X-egg power, and a pair of comfortable flip-flops. Not the most professional looking outfit, but then again, I wasn't the most professional kind of girl.

"Just calm down." said Azami, with just a hint of amusement to her voice. "I'm sure they'll be here to pick you up any time now."

"I know." I said as I turned to my chara. "But it just bugs me that-" I broke off as a caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked back out the window to see that a black car had pulled into my driveway. But instead of being relieved, I groaned. That black car was much too familiar for comfort. There was no one else it could be. I looked to see who was sitting in the driver's seat and, sure enough, it was Nikaido. Seeing me peeking out the window, he smiled and waved. Azami giggled at this, and I glared at her in return. She definitely got way too much enjoyment out of watching me try and deal with Nikaido.

"Hey, just remember what you said the other day." I said I opened the door to go outside. "You said you would chara-change with me the next time I had to talk to Nikaido."

"So I did. And maybe I will, maybe I won't." Azami replied before I opened the passenger door and got into the car.

"Good morning, Mizuki-san!" said Nikaido as he backed the car out of the driveway. "How are you doing?"

"Fine." I mumbled back, looking out the window and trying to avoid meeting his eyes.

"Ah, good, good." He said. "And how about you, Azami-san?"

"I'm doing perfectly fine. Thanks for asking." Azami replied cheerily.

"Wonderful!" Nikaido said. To someone not paying attention, his attitude would seem completely genuine. But I could hear that just slight bit of malice behind his voice. I hated it. I tried to distract myself from him by looking at the different people and houses as we drove by, but it was no use. I had no idea why I was so bothered by it, but his attitude and demeanor were just like nails on a chalkboard. It made me feel angry and scared at the same time. Mostly scared. He didn't talk for a while then, so that we were sitting in a bit of an awkward silence for a few minutes as he drove the car to Easter.

"So how far are you with memorizing your poem, Mizuki-san?" asked Nikaido casually after a while.

Oh yeah. The Edgar Allan Poe poem. Actually, I hadn't bothered looking at it yet. I was about to stutter out an answer, when I felt the familiar courage of a chara-change flow through me. "No. Why are you trying to mess with me by giving me such dark poems?"

I think he noticed that I had chara-changed, but if so, he didn't mention it. "I'm afraid I still don't know what you're talking about, Mizuki-san." Nikaido said. "Edgar Allan Poe is an extremely well-known poet, and I thought you might enjoy this particular work."

"Do you really think I'm going to be convinced by that?" I said, crossing my arms and glaring at him. He was smiling in the way that normally freaked me out, but it didn't bother me while I was chara-changed.

We were pulling up to the front of Easter right by now. Nikaido shook his head at me, as if amused. "I still have no idea what you're talking about. I figured that you could appreciate a truly great poem, and so I gave 'Alone' to you. But that's enough discussion on the issue. We're here!" He got out of the car, leaving it running. As I unbuckled, my chara-change faded and I stepped out as well. A guy in a suit - presumably working for Easter - stepped up and got into the drivers seat. He was probably going to park the car until we were done. I had to admit, Easter knew how to give themselves a highly professional image.

Nikaido led the way in to the building and straight to the elevators. As soon as the secretary saw him, she stood up and bowed respectfully. "Welcome back." She said.

In return, Nikaido gave a little friendly wave before pressing the 'up' button for the elevators. One of the doors immediately opened up, and we walked in. If anything, this was even more awkward than the car ride. Admittedly, it was much shorter, but still... At the very least, they didn't have any elevator music. That would have been the only thing that could have made it worse. Nikaido probably would've hummed along just to bug me.

Once the elevator doors opened back up, Nikaido led the way once again. He seemed to know his way around quite well. I noticed that we were on the same floor I had gone to last time, and he was leading me towards the same room. He didn't bother knocking - he simply opened the door and walked in. The three scientists were there, though I noticed that the manager of Easter wasn't here. Perhaps he no longer wanted to waste his time on me.

"Ah, Nikaido-sempai!" said the skinny guy scientist. "We didn't know we would be so blessed as to have you coming!"

Suck up. I thought to myself as I cast my glanced over to Azami, who looked like she had about the same thought on her mind.

"Well, I do feel somewhat responsible for young Mizuki-san's welfare, so I thought it would be best if I came along." Said Nikaido, acting like he was the most generous man in the world.

"How kind of you!" said the annoying suck-up scientist. Then he turned to me. "Miyuki-san, would you like to get started?"

"Eh-em!" coughed Azami from near my shoulder.

"Oh, and, uh, Empress Azami? Are you ready?" said the scientist, seemingly resigned to having to refer to Azami like that. I almost broke out laughing. Perhaps I should get him to call me Queen Miyuki, or something like that.

Azami smiled, then said, "Yes, I'm ready."

The burly scientist - who seemed normally to be more like a strong, silent type - suddenly spoke up. "Miyuki-san, would you please take off your bracelet? We don't want it possibly interfering in the process.

I shrugged and slid off the bracelet, handing it to the girl scientist. I really hadn't taken it off at all since receiving it - I didn't want to run the risk of the guardians sensing something, even when I wasn't anywhere near them.

The woman scientist opened the door to the side room, and Azami spread her wings and swooped into the room, landing right next to the crystal. Nikaido stood a little ways away from me, making sure that he was watching from a somewhat safe distance. Azami waited until the burly scientist nodded to her through the glass, and then she reached out and touched the crystal.

The same thing that I had seen last time happened again - for just a moment right as she touched it, a purple haze seemed to surround Azami and get sucked into the crystal. It seemed a bit darker to me, but then again, I was doubled over in the pain of it almost as soon as it happened. Then, the power came again. It didn't seem like quite as much as last time, though perhaps that was because I just knew what to expect now. I looked up as the X-energy gave me the strength to get over the pain from before. A dark cloud was hovering around Azami, and it seemed like she was absorbing it. Her face was lit up with exhilaration, and I could perfectly understand - the same power was coursing through me as well, making me feel great. Nothing could possibly get in our way with this much power at our disposal. Beneath it all, I felt the dark feeling within me grow just a bit stronger. But right now, I was too high on power to care.

Soon enough, the dark haze faded and one of the scientists opened the door so Azami could get out. The main rush was gone, but the power still felt as if it was buzzing just beneath the surface. Azami floated up to my shoulder and sat down, though I could feel in her tenseness how much she wanted to be up and moving.

The girl scientist walked up to me tentatively and held out the bracelet, looking genuinely concerned. "Are you alright, Miyuki-san and Azami-san?"

I nodded. "Perfectly fine."

"That was quite interesting, Mizuki-san." said Nikaido. "Now, would you please head down to the lobby for a minute? I need to talk with these amazing scientists for a moment or two."

I was reluctant to do what Nikaido said, but I was too hyped to argue. I even did a little bit of a wave good-bye as I walked out of the room. Azami immediately took off from my shoulder once the door was closed and began flying around. "We need to do this more often!" said Azami as I pressed the down button for the elevator.

"I agree." I said as I stepped into the elevator and started going down. "I feel amazing! Perhaps not as great as last time, but it's still awesome."

"Yeah! We should take another flight around the city!" said Azami.

"Maybe." I said, smiling at her energy. The elevator and the door opened, revealing a woman with reddish-brown hair and pale blue eyes. And just behind her, a girl who looked a couple years older than me. The girl had a sort-of Gothic Lolita dress on, and had long, blond hair which she had pulled up into two elegant-looking ponytails on either side of her head.

I was shocked. This was the newest, most popular idol in Japan: Hoshina Utau.

And if that wasn't enough to surprise me, then this was - next to her shoulder was a devilish-looking shugo chara.

I was just speechless for a moment. But before anyone really knew what was happening, Azami broke the stand still. She zoomed over to Hoshina Utau, stopping right in front of her shugo chara. I noticed that the shugo chara was actually somewhat similar to Azami - it had a tail (though it was more like a skinny, demon tail with a triangle at the end), small demon-like wings, and tiny horns. The wings were smaller, and didn't fold up like Azami's did, and the horns were a lot smaller than the longer, skinnier ones Azami had. But even more than that, she had a mischievous gleam in her eye almost exactly like the one Azami tended to have.

"Who are you?" Azami asked bluntly.

"Who am I?!" asked the chara incredulously. "I should be asking who in the world you are! You look like some kind of bad copy of me!"

Azami didn't waste any more time with discussion. She leaped forward, tackling the little demon chara and sending them both rolling through the air. Both pulled apart after a few seconds and they began circling, each trying to get at the other without being attacked herself. Both looked intensely fierce, though I doubted that Azami would actually do any damage. At this point, the elevator doors started closing on me and I quickly stepped out of the elevator.

"Iru, stop!" said Hoshina Utau commandingly, though the chara took no notice.

I was so amused at the fighting that I totally forgot that Utau was an idol. "No, just leave them." I said casually. "I doubt my chara is actually gonna hurt yours, and I'm not worried in the least about my chara getting hurt."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Utau, turning her attention to me with a slightly angry look.

I shrugged. "Interpret it how you want. But I'm rather enjoying watching this, so don't stop them." Of course, I'd been implying that her chara was considerably weaker than my own. I was still feeling the rush from the X-energy, and wasn't about to back down if she wanted to start a fight. Even if she was a famous super star.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" asked the lady with the red hair as she scrutinized me.

I shrugged again, turning away from the quarrelling charas.. "I can't say that I've ever seen you anywhere."

She looked at me harder. "That's it!" she said suddenly. "You're the girl who Yuu's in charge of. Yamada Miyuki, right?"

"Uh, yeah." I said, annoyed that she knew who I was and I had no idea who she was. I was also a bit surprised that she was familiar enough with my Nikaido to call him by his first name. But mostly, I was annoyed. As daring as I was feeling right now, I decided to go with an insult in retaliation. "What about it, old lady?"

This seemed to hit a nerve. Her face practically turned a whole shade redder, and she glared at me. "I am not an old lady! You just tell Yuu that-"

"Tell me what?" asked an all-too-familiar voice from off to my left. I looked over to see that Nikaido had just emerged from one of the other elevators without either I or this lady noticing. Except this time, his voice was different. It wasn't the fake, school-teacher voice he always used around me. Now, it was calm and clearly menacing. I almost sighed with relief - I could handle Nikaido like this. In fact, it was amazing just how much I was no longer bothered by him. Now, he seemed no more threatening to me than any other person.

The lady immediately composed herself, taking on a similar - though slightly less menacing - demeanor. "I simply wanted to let you know that I can not believe how disrespectful you allow your underling to be."

"Woah, underling?" I said defiantly. "I wouldn't exactly call myself an underling. More like someone who follows orders for convenience's sake."

They ignored me. Nikaido walked up, and I moved out of the way as he approached. The two - the lady and Nikaido - were now standing more or less face to face, and I was standing next to Hoshina Utau.

Nikaido smiled cruelly. "I am rather surprised that you are letting yourself be riled by a mere elementary school student, Sanjo Yukari." I got the feeling that Nikaido was saying her full name for my benefit.

"I would think that a teacher like you would be able to keep his students in line." Yukari replied back, seeming very slightly annoyed by what Nikaido had said.

Nikaido replied back with another witty remark, and she insinuated something else in return. Beside me, I heard Utau give a short sigh of frustration. "I'm supposed to be getting to a recording." she said. Now Azami flew back to my shoulder, as did Utau's chara fly to her own shoulder - Iru, I think she had called the little devilish chara. Azami seemed quite satisfied. Iru seemed content, too, though perhaps a bit more ruffled. I guessed that the fight had come out with Azami as the unofficial winner, but with both of them ending up enjoying it. It was a good way to burn off some energy, I guessed.

Turning my attention back to the Nikaido and Sanjo (who were still calmly criticizing each other), I leaned over to Utau and asked in a whisper, "Do they do this often? They seem to have quite a rivalry."

Utau seemed a bit angry with me still for my earlier comment, but she replied, "They used to date, but broke up a while back. Now they both compete here, seeing who can do the best at their job."

Now totally ignoring Yukari and my teacher, I turned to talk to Utau. She was a couple inches taller than me, but it didn't bother me too much. "I'm Yamada Miyuki, and this little mischief-maker on my shoulder is Azami." I said, introducing myself and my chara.

Utau hesitated a bit, as if unsure whether she wanted to be so friendly. Eventually, she gave me a small, well-controlled smile. It didn't look too incredibly kind, but that was fine with me. She introduced herself. "I'm Hoshina Utau. This is Iru, and this -" she looked around for a moment, then looked at Iru. "Where did Eru go?" she asked her chara.

"She was being naggy, so I chased her until she went away." said Iru with a cruel smile. It reminded me almost exactly of how Azami liked to deal with Kiseki.

Utau seemed unconcerned. "I have another chara named Eru, but she doesn't appear to be here at the moment."

"Two charas, huh?" I said. "Impressive. So anyway, what do you do for Easter? I know you sing, but do you do anything, you know, shugo chara related?"

Iru snickered evilly. "You bet she does. We chara-change, and-"

"Utau, quit talking. We need to get to your recording." Yukari said, interrupting what Iru was about to say.

Utau's demeanor immediately changed. She had never been exactly relaxed throughout our short conversation, but now she gained a new intensity. She gave me a brief glance - neither unfriendly, nor kind - before turning and going into the elevator with Sanjo.

Once the doors closed, Nikaido turned back to me. And his smile was back. "All right, Mizuki-san! Let's get going."

Despite the fact that I now knew without a doubt how Nikaido really was, it didn't lessen the effect his act had on me.

"O-okay." I said, following him out the door.

* * *

The short car ride back to my house wasn't very eventful. I was still more or less scared stiff of Nikaido, and Azami kind of glared at me in annoyance the whole way home. Perhaps she was amused by how scared I was sometimes, but now she was just getting frustrated at my irrational fear. And it was definitely irrational - no matter what I told myself when Nikaido wasn't around, I simply couldn't control the near panic that rose within me whenever he used that mask of kindness over his cruelty. I just couldn't get rid of my 'Nikaido-phobia', as I jokingly called it.

"So why are you bothered so much by him?" asked Azami later that night while we were in my room. We hadn't gone flying at all today, but we had enjoyed ourselves walking around the city.

I spun the swivel chair I was sitting in, which was both fun and slightly nauseating. "I don't know. I know I could deal with Nikaido, but..."

"But what?" challenged Azami. "What could possibly be this bad about a fake attitude?"

I stopped my spinning and shook my head. "I dunno. It's almost like..." I trailed off, not sure if I really wanted to voice my feeling.

"Like what?" asked Azami.

"Nothing." I said. "Just forget about it."

Despite Azami's prodding, I refused to tell her what I was thinking. Or, rather, what I was trying to avoid thinking. It almost seemed like if I acknowledged my worry, then I would be letting something horrible into the open that had been locked up for years. Something that I didn't want to think about. Or, more accurately, something I didn't want to remember.

"Come ON! Just tell me already!" Azami complained as I turned off the lights and went to bed.

I climbed into bed, the light from the hallway my only guide to keep me from running in to something in the dark. I felt like if I didn't address whatever it was now, then I would never be able to face it. Perhaps it would've helped me deal with Nikaido if I knew why I was afraid of him. But I couldn't do speak my concern. I was too afraid of what I would find out if I started delving into the topic. Whatever it was, my instinct told me it was something I didn't want to deal with.

"Good night, Azami." I said, ending the conversation.

*Edit - I realized I was being an idiot when I wrote this chapter weeks ago, and I had referred to Eru as Iru and vice-versa. It is now changed. And I call myself a Shugo Chara fan. I feel ashamed _*